Posts Tagged ‘Lake Titicaca’

Lake Titicaca lies between the borders of Peru and Bolivia. We stayed in Puno, on the Peruvian side, and visited Uros – a group of floating islands. The history books say that the islands (built of reed) were constructed by locals to keep inhabitants of the area safe from invaders… though nowadays I can’t figure out for the life of me why they are still there. Must be the tourism industry.

Reed – in its natural state.

Reed – turned into the foundation and building materials for the Uros Islands.

The island artisans.

We spent one night in Puno, and from there took an unpaved route around the south of the Lake to Bolivia – and experienced the strangest border crossing to date.

Entrance into Bolivia is notoriously difficult for Americans, since we have to apply for a Visa and pay a $135 USD reciprocity fee. Crossing the border through Desaguadero instead of Copacabana proved to be easier – although not without its challenges. (It only took us about an hour, despite horror stories we had heard about four and five hours through immigration, and officers only accepting brand new dollar bills, turning people back, etc etc)

Highlights of the border crossing:

going through four different immigration officers to get our Visas

finding a place to make photocopies of our Visa, since the immigration office didn’t(?) have a copy machine

one officer grilling us on why we didn’t have children for no less than ten minutes

another officer having pornography on his desk in plain sight

We took a colectivo out of the border town and into La Paz, the capital…